Cardiologist has a four-letter word for dieters: Salt

Salt is your biggest enemy, says Dr. Ted Fenske

"We're talking instead about reducing their salt consumption to improve their blood pressure. If they start to avoid salty foods (fast foods, processed foods), the weight is going to come off automatically," Dr. Ted Fenske says.

Photograph by: Mario Tama
, Getty Images

You've tried fad diets, now try something that will actually help you lose weight. Tackle your heart health and the pounds will start melting away.

The two are intimately related, explains Edmonton cardiologist Dr. Ted Fenske, so the behaviours you adopt to take care of your heart blood vessels also cause weight loss. You won't drop 20 pounds in 10 days, but you will lose weight over a healthy length of time.

The great thing about it is that you don’t have to starve or deprive yourself or rack up a huge number of pounds-lost to be successful.

Losing only five to 10 per cent of your body weight substantially reduces your risk of cardiovascular disease, which is something to really celebrate, Fenske says. So is maintaining the same weight as last year, because most people tend to gain weight every year.

"I’m not talking about beach (body) appeal, because for beach appeal you’ve got to get your weight right down, you’ve got to have your six-pack showing," he notes. "But a six-pack is not necessarily healthy . . . and, I think, to make your whole life revolve around your abdominal muscles is kind of sad, actually.

"What I’m trying to do is reassure people and make (weight loss) a lesser mountain for them. So, rather than focusing on weight and scale and the like, think about these other things and your weight will come into line."

Overweight and obesity is an epidemic in Canada — rates have tripled in the last 25 years — Fenske observes, but hounding patients to lose weight doesn’t work.

"We're talking instead about reducing their salt consumption to improve their blood pressure. If they start to avoid salty foods (fast foods, processed foods), the weight is going to come off automatically," he adds.

While You Diet is aimed at people who are at risk or are borderline for developing high blood pressure, diabetes, arthritic problems, lung trouble and sleep apnea because of their increasing weight and giving them a wake-up call, Fenske says.

It’s a preventive approach, in keeping with his work as staff cardiologist at the C. K. Hui Heart Centre at the Royal Alexandra Hospital and as medical director of the Northern Alberta Cardiac Rehabilitation Program at the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital.

His strategies for improving heart health are presented while looking at the potential pitfalls in a typical 24-hour day, including failing to eat breakfast; making bad snack choices and not getting enough sleep. People can start making changes with breakfast, or with the issue they most identify with, Fenske says.

"Many people think, ’I have to get down to the size I was when I was 18, or look like Angelina Jolie before I can be healthy,’" Fenske observes. "I know you’re struggling with weight, but while you’re doing that, while you’re working on it, try and incorporate these things into your day. By doing that, you already begin to enjoy significant health improvements."

We’d all like a magic pill we could take to lose weight quickly and easily, but it doesn’t exist, he says.

"These are good old-fashioned lifestyle approaches that remain cutting-edge today. Because the bariatric solution (weight-loss surgery) is not the solution — for certain individuals that are at really high risk it is — but it would be a real tragedy to put people through these interventions thinking we’re going to curb this (overweight/obesity) epidemic."

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